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Resolved: We are going to see if we can publish a book based on this blog.
Right?
Failing that, more great music and ridiculous memories (or is it the other way around) for 2011.
So I have been thinking that one of my resolutions for 2011 needs to be to spend less time in front of screens, and more time playing satisfying, edifying music.
The other day my eyes were burning a couple hours before I went to bed, and I realized barely a moment had passed in the day when I hadn’t had my eyes on a computer screen, the TV, or my Blackberry. Not good! I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want, in my thirties, to need a parent who limits my daily screen time. Must do it for myself.
I have to be on the computer for work, but I don’t need to play on it as much; I certainly don’t need to watch as much TV as I sometimes do. So I think starting in 2011 I need to read more books and play much, much more music around the house.
I am totally with MamaKitt on the wanting to play showtunes more frequently, as we both once did, so that’ll be part of the plan; I also, as I’ve said, need to actually check out some of these people and groups who interest me. And I need to learn about more new people — I used to really pay attention to new stuff, and don’t so much any more.
Ah, 2011. We are resolved to make you grand!
And I am resolved to get on the road for my holiday first thing in the morning, so this will be the last you’ll hear from me for a bit. Enjoy your own holiday, reader[s]! Check you on the flip side.
The other night, the fella was downloading Christmas music to add to his e-archive. I was doing something or other in the next room, and he suddenly called out: “Would you want an album of classical Christmas music?”
“Um, sure,” I replied. Not so much because I wanted an album of classical Christmas music to be downloaded onto my fella’s computer, where I would have limited access to it and it would probably soon be forgotten. But because I was touched by the thought.
While our musical tastes overlap a great deal, it is an unspoken but obvious fact that there are certain places where they veer wildly away from each other. Actually, it is quite often spoken by me; I’m forever rudely confronting him with a, “What is this?” (if I’m cranky) or “And what might we be listening to?” (less cranky, but still bitchy). He, on the other hand, politely puts up with my show tunes and classical music and folk with little more than the occasional eye roll.
Of course, since he tends to play DJ most of the time when we’re together, his exposure to these weird forms of music is limited. So my resolution for today: Play more classical music!
At the moment, Jr. and I listen to 7 minutes of classical each morning, on our way to daycare. It’s a habit I’m sticking with. But other than that, I rarely listen to it anymore. And that’s a shame. There are compositions that make me swoon, that feed my brain, that scored my entire childhood. I want them back.
P.S., I’ve noticed that so far all my resolutions are along the lines of, “I want to do this thing I used to do.” Tomorrow I shall have to come up with some sparkling and spectacular NEW thing deserving of the odd-sounding 2011.
That’s “l-eye-ve,” not “liv.” As in, some time during 2011 I sure would like to see some live music. Heard an ad this morning for a Third Eye Blind show, which inspired this thought (though that is not the show I would choose).
As I’ve mentioned before in this space, the fella and I once had a robust life of attending live shows. This was when we a) lived in the big, hip city of Seattle and b) didn’t have a child to clothe and feed. Those were glory days.
Now we live far away from useful venues, and the idea of lining up a babysitter just to trek in to the city and spend money is not overly appealing. BUT. There is nothing quite like the feeling of melting into a too-loud performance by a favorite band, of wandering out into the night with your ears ringing and your clothes smelling vaguely of strangers, of later listening to the recorded versions of songs you heard in the flesh and hearing them in whole new ways.
I’m not yearning to be 25 or hang out in a club. I just want to find, at some point during the year, a show that appeals to me, then work out the logistics that will allow us to leave the house for once. We’ll see.
Here’s the thing about our beloved little blog. I love it. I LOVE it! And I love the premise with which we began. But lately I have remembered that … I don’t really like scanning.
See, these last two mornings I have driven to work listening to CDs that I burned over the weekend, just to make sure they sound all right. And that means I have listened to songs of my choosing, songs I enjoy, songs I am currently obsessed with (like, obvs, Cee Lo’s “F&*% You”). This makes me SO HAPPY. It starts my day off with DELIGHT. And I LOVE that.
In the days B.B. (Before Blog), I would either listen to music of my choosing or NPR during my commute. The former delighted me; the latter was soothing and could be tuned out. Scanning, on the other hand, tends to be jarring, and only on the best occasions delightful. WHICH IS NOT TO SAY I haven’t enjoyed doing it for le blog, because I have — and I have seldom wished to be doing any other kind of morning listening.
But … I think that, in the new year, one my musical resolutions may need to be to manage my commuting soundtrack a little more. It just can make all the difference to my mood at the start of the day. I in no way intend to give up scanning entirely — I’ve become a little addicted to it, I must say — but a little “F&*% You” goes a long way.
Recently I’ve been lamenting the lack of music and art in my life. Not the kind on the radio or on the walls (although, now that I mention it, we still have not hung up any pictures after three years of living in this house … perhaps that’s part of my problem), but the kind you make. Yourself.
A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking how I especially miss musicals, and how unlikely it is that I will reprise my role as Chorus Member #12 any time soon, given how life is playing out. Then I decided that I could stage my own musicals in the privacy of my home. Or at least take a daily Show Tunes Break, blasting a favorite song and singing and dancing my heart out. After all, if one can’t take advantage of working at home to take Show Tunes Breaks, what good is telecommuting?
So weak was my commitment to this idea that I not only didn’t do it, I plum forgot about it. But this morning, as I listened to Whitney wonder how she would know if he really loves her and pictured tiny TGOTS and her little pal staging their carefully choreographed routine, I was reminded anew of my vow.
So my resolution: To take at least one Show Tunes Break a week … and see where things go from there.
P.S.: On an unrelated note, does anyone actually enjoy the Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas music? I ask in all sincerity.
This is the week (or, uh, the few days, at least, since holiday plans will soon whisk us away) that MamaKitt and I have resolved to talk about musical resolutions for the new year. Hooray!
My first one involves a couple of albums and artists I keep saying I think I’d like, and ought to investigate, but haven’t, so far. Why do I keep talking about how much I’d probably like things, yet not checking them out? I do not know. Story of my life.
So, in the new year, I resolve to buy Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More and look into records by David Bowie and Elvis Costello. My knowledge of the former is limited to “Little Lion Man,” which I love; for the latter two artists I have just a smattering of familiarity where I feel I ought to have much much more.
In fact, maybe I will get my hands on Sigh No More to lend my holiday travels some novelty and interest. Why I did not think of this while downloading singles like a madwoman as the snow fell this weekend, I do not know. Because I’m a nutbag?
Again: Story of my life. Here’s to doing better in 2011!
Dearest reader[s], I hope a lovely, relaxing, festive weekend is on your horizon. And I hope you will join us back here at Auto Tunes next week for a little something we’re calling:
YOU SAY YOU WANT A RESOLUTION WEEK!!
Well, you know …
The good MamaKitt and I thought we’d spend the last full blogging week before the holidays looking forward to the year ahead, and making some musical resolutions.
Are there CDs we used to love but never seem to play anymore? RESOLVED: We will play them in 2011.
Are there artists we’ve always meant to seek out, but never have? RESOLVED: Sought out they shall be in 2011.
And so on and so forth. We’ll see how it goes!
Wow did I just get a whirlwind of a musical education. The description of which will cause nothing but public humiliation on my part, but here goes.
Pulling into my driveway this morning, I caught an all-too familiar riff. “One bourbon, one scotch, one beer!” I said to myself gleefully, and stayed in the car for an extra minute to hear the words, but I was too late — it was all instrumental.
Nonetheless, I went down old Memory Lane, picturing myself loudly singing along with the song on a drive to New York City with the fella and our mutual friend (a quiet boy with whom TGOTS also grew up, who for a long time would only bust out of his shell when music was involved). There’s a certain stretch of highway, when you’ve pointed your car south and headed for the city, that just announces You Are Here. At least to me — I’ve registered it on many a trip, from the van ride to JFK before I flew to Russia as a high-schooler to this raucous ride with the boys a few years ago. It’s just a little slope toward an underpass, lined up above with urban markets standing cheek-by-jowl, and it can be nothing but New York.
Anyhow, this is where I place us while we sing along with John Lee Hooker — or possibly, heaven forfend, George Thorogood.
I spent some time this morning listening to both versions, enjoying them thoroughly, but in neither did I hear the classic growl that sounds to me like “a how how how how.” So I googled that phrase, and turned up a video of … ZZ Top.
Huh, I thought, ZZ Top covered this song too? No. ZZ Top was (were) growling through an also familiar song that turns out to be “La Grange.” Which is totally what I heard on the radio this morning. And which is another example of a song whose title I know, and whose sound I know, but ne’er had drawn the connection. Plus, it’s about a brothel!
I felt a tiny spark of redemption when I read that the opening lick was “borrowed” from John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” — that, in fact, the band was sued for said borrowing. At least the John Lee Hooker file in my mental cabinet was open for the right reason.
But ultimately: Shameful ignorance on multiple fronts.
I’m glad this week is almost over.
This morning I needed to hit the post office with the 24-hour, automated shipping kiosk in order to get some Christmas goodies in the mail, so this meant a different, highway-instead-of-surface-street, commute.
And that, interestingly, meant I got all kinds of new and less mainstream (and probably Canadian) radio stations to scan through. Hooray!
Actually, I betcha they were indeed Canadian, since the songs I’m inclined to report on were by the Tragically Hip, Sarah McLachlan, Jason Collett, and Rufus Wainwright. I was delighted to spend part of my drive with Rufus’s “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk,” a song I love off an album I adore. I think I have previously posted a clip of Rufus doing Judy (Garland, of course), which is FABulous, but I also love the quieter, moodier Poses very, very much.
Oh, Canada. You made me happy this morning. And that was even before the DJ annonced his poll (inspired by news that e-readers will soon have ads) of the day: What products go best with which classic works of Western literature?
Sorry — what now? Classic literature and morning drive-time radio? A preposterous combination. Except not for our apparently more literature and cultured neighbors to the north!
Go, Canada!
